UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've no idea what's going on down there (I live at the other end of the county and direct links are limited), but the LibDems in this part of the world have a playbook and it generally involves intense fishing for Labour tactical voters. In other words: this is something to put on leaflets to encourage that to happen and should be understood in that light and no other.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That said, I've seen some musings online that the Lib Dems only release this sort of data when they actually win by-elections, and you don't see this kind of ramping when they come short, i.e., they know more about their chances of winning than they let on and only message this strongly when they genuinely think they're going to win.

I've been around for long enough to know that this really isn't true - although it's possible that the last line there is. Quite a lot of hyped-up LibDem challenges in by-elections have amounted to a significant increase in support and yet still a clear defeat, while near-misses have been as common as spectacular victories. By-elections are strange things: sometimes it is very, very clear what is happening, but quite often all of the campaigns involved are blind to how things are going for everyone else.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

FWIW I suspect the Tories are in genuine trouble there, but we'll see.

It's interesting because while every single indicator bar one suggests that they'll win easily, that exception (i.e. the circumstances of the by-election) is a potentially very dangerous one. People who follow elections for years often end up getting jaded and insist that circumstances never matter, but that's nonsense: quite often they don't, but sometimes they do and the result is serious trouble for the defending party. We had a good example of that earlier this year, admittedly in a constituency that, unlike North Shropshire, had only ever been an absolute rock-solid fortress of a seat for one period in its history. So we shall see.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Turnout 34.8%

And this, ladies and gentlemen, may well be the most significant figure of the night.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, but the new Tory hopeful very much being an outsider *does* matter. Its the sort of thing you can get away with easily enough at a GE (Sunak being parachuted into Hague's seat being a classic example) but is much more of a risk in byelections.

Hague being parachuted into what became Hague's seat was another example! But from what I understand the issue with the Conservative candidate isn't so much that He's Not Even From Round Here, but the parachute has not landed particularly well and that he's said some things that might not go down that well locally. Though anyone who thinks that running a random local councillor would have been a good idea demonstrates a certain lack of knowledge of the constituency - what they should probably have looked for is someone local and not previously that politically active but a firm Conservative. Hardly rare in the area.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's comfortably well off suburbia for the most part but in a middle management kind of way rather than a higher professionals way and is also quite old - the average age is either the oldest in the GLA area or close to it. I suppose there's also a bit of a white-flighty element as well. These factors usually correlated to higher support for Leave in the referendum. But remember most places weren't overwhelmingly for one side or the other: the estimated resulted for this constituency was 62.4 to 37.6, which is a substantial lead but not a massive blowout.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Still, as far as the referendum goes... the low turnout and the decent Labour recent suggests a lot of that atmosphere is fading somewhat. Of course this is what every other sign since the autumn has suggested so, again, we have learned nothing new.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Mischief as a response to mischief, I think. Anyway, my understanding - this being second hand information from someone who lives there - is that the atmosphere of the campaign is pretty low-key and easy to miss with not much in the way of signs or posters (for anyone) or much sign of activity beyond a degree of leaflet-dumping. Which tends to suggest another low turnout, though we shall see.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There were local pacts in both Bolton and Huddersfield; in both cases the Liberals stood in West and the Tories in East.  I don't know why the Tories didn't stand in the Welsh constituencies but suspect the Liberals would have held Cardigan and Montgomery regardless.

Montgomery could only have been vulnerable to the Tories and was never likely to be so whilst Clement Davies was candidate - when the pact broke there in 1959 his majority was still a solid 11pts. I suspect the logic was simply that he was the party's leader. Ceredigion/Cardigan is an odder case: it was historically much safer for the Liberals and looked secure on the fully-contested 1950 results, but Roderic Bowen was an absentee MP and eventually lost as a result at the second post-pact election there. Which, admittedly, was 1966.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It may just be expectation management, but pessimistic noises are coming out of the Tory camp.

It's likely the former, but if not it would mean that they think they're struggling to hit their raw vote target, whatever it is. They won't actually know much about how anyone else is doing - no one ever really does in a by-election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway I've no idea what will happen, except that I'd be surprised at anything other than a low turnout. If the seat is lost it would be roughly equivalent to Glasgow East in 2008 on the 'oh shit' scale, in other words very bad indeed. It would also be very amusing. I've no idea how Labour will do - contrary to what #FBPE twitter insists they haven't run dead, but they've not put an intensive effort into things either and the local party is very weak so not really capable of much of an effort on its own. I suspect it probably doesn't matter.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Funny thing isn't it? Once upon a time it was a very common thing to happen. I suppose all of this tracks the purgatory period of the LibDems.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm not even sure if all of the boxes would be at the count yet. Beware of early rumours!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm not even sure if all of the boxes would be at the count yet. Beware of early rumours!

How long does it take for them to be at the count?

Depends on the constituency and all sorts of other factors. This is a large rural constituency without a central urban core and the count is being done in another constituency so this process will take longer than in a small urban constituency and so on. Of course they'll still count what they have: they don't generally wait for everything but this is one reason why counts can drag in rural seats sometimes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I did forget to ask if there was a reason the Tories didn't select someone local?

Local party is a bit of a nest of vipers and some of the better known and better established figures are compromised in various ways. Of course they could have looked for someone not politically active but known as a loyal supporter and well known in the community in this or that part of the constituency, that might have been a good idea.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They've started counting.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Turnout 46%

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This would obviously be very, very funny.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Could the swing rival Christchurch 1993?

You know ordinarily even very disastrous by-elections don't matter much, but sometimes I suppose... certainly one would wonder...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not even close and with the Labour and Green votes not actually vanishing into thin air... oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway, this whole by-election has been an entertaining Tory car crash from start to finish.

Amazing stuff, quite unbelievable. I may very well be laughing as I type.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It may just be expectation management, but pessimistic noises are coming out of the Tory camp.

It's likely the former, but if not it would mean that they think they're struggling to hit their raw vote target, whatever it is. They won't actually know much about how anyone else is doing - no one ever really does in a by-election.

In the event their candidate polled just twelve thousand votes so, yep, failed to hit whatever the target was and (rightly) went 'oh noooo...'

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Between one by-election and another we can be fairly sure now, I think, that the insistence from some old cynics that the circumstances of a by-election never matter is... somewhat misplaced.

In terms of severity: because of how safe the seat normally is and because the margin was not close, we're maybe hitting not so much Glasgow East levels of 'oh shit' as if Labour had lost the Glasgow North East by-election the following year.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Most of those pledges are... the same pledge.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I’d be fascinated to see how members of the farming community voted; Labour made a big outreach (Keir was the first leader to speak at the NFU conference for a decade) and there’s been a number of rows over their treatment by the Government- not helped by Boris saying ‘let the pigs die’,

I've heard credible second-hand reports and rumours of grumbling and muttering from the farming community in North Shropshire about various issues - material pressures (many of which are Brexit-related), concerns about the government's enthusiasm for 'free trade' deals, irritation that Paterson (who was supposed to be their man) wasn't pulling his weight (which added to anger at what he was actually doing instead...), that kind of thing. The farming community in North Shropshire is dominated by dairying and is overwhelmingly comprised of landowning farmers so is ordinarily extremely Tory (we're probably taking over 90% here), but there are good reasons to believe that there was a very large slump. Probably more still voted Conservative than for the LibDem, but when what is normally an absolute pillar gets wobbly that's really, really bad...